Only Dead Fish

The Exact Centre Of The Internet

I've found it. And it's here.

I'm With Him

He gets it.
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Lest We Forget

Think I might get me one of these badges.

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Being Good

Image courtesy Johnny Vulkan
Paul Graham wrote an excellent piece on the value of altruism in business, most notably for start-ups. You can see him deliver it as a presentation here. Benevolance has all kinds of direct business benefits. It powers and supports company morale. It makes you an attractive company to work for. It makes people warm to your business, feel affinity for it, help you. All these things are critical to small businesses and start-ups. Scrub that. They are critical to businesses of any size.

Being good provides direction and a framework for your decision making. Central to this point lies a key thought. That if you are a company that does good then whatever happens, when you are in doubt about what is best to do, your instinct will always be to do whatever is best for your customers. And that's got to be a good thing. "You can hold onto this like a rope in a hurricane," says Paul, "and it will save you if anything can. Follow it and it will take you through everything you need to do."

I think the interesting thing from a marketing perspective about being good is what it does for your talkability. Etsy's whole philosophy is centred around this - just look at their mission statement. And have you ever seen such a passionate community of brand advocates? If you make something people love and you enable them to pass the word, your growth will be exponential.

I have a feeling that this is a really big idea (I'm not alone). It's like marketing as a service, and being useful, but different. It has feel to it like John Grant's Marketing Enthusiasm (remember that?). Being good doesn't have to be difficult. In fact it's often the easiest option. For example as Paul points out, just being authentic means you never have to remember all the things you said in the past so you don't contradict yourself. This is not so much about CSR as what your brand stands for and how you act - and not just that which is captured in your annual sustainability report but how you interact with your customers every day. So in that sense, being good has never been more important - for life and for business.

HT to and and for the original links.

Restlessness

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Sir Bob Geldof was truly impressive when I saw him speak at Innovation Edge last week. Something he said really struck a chord with me. About how innovation and great ideas often come from those who feel, or those that are, restless. He used a George Bernard Shaw quote to illustrate the point:

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man."

Being restless is not always a bad thing.

Lorraine Shemesh

I seem to have a thing about swimming pools and paintings lately. Art Feaster left a comment (but sadly no personal link) on my post about Eric Zener's paintings advising me to check out an artist called Lorraine Shemesh, which I duly did. Lorraine is an instructor at the National Academy of Design in NY and her paintings are, as AF rightly says, quite breathtaking.

More here

Shut Up And Let Me Go

Maybe it helps that I love the track (from The Ting Tings), but I saw this for the first time yesterday and I think it's just brilliant. Part of one of the best long-running campaigns there is (are there still many of those left?). Simplicity, exuberance. Brilliance.

Same As It Ever Was

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I saw Sir Tim Berners-Lee interviewed at Innovation Edge on Wednesday. He made an important distinction in defining what the web (his invention) is now all about, describing it as like a teenager - expanding its horizons, flexing its muscles, beginning to understand what it was really capable of. And in that context "the web becomes a subset of humans interacting" and a powerful platform for humans to experiment with new forms of democracy, organisation, communication. The web he said, is not comprised of connections between computers, it is "humanity connected".

I was having an interesting chat with Graeme about this the other day. The social web changes more than how we communicate. It changes how we interact, make friends, find information, express our identity, opinions, creativity, ourselves. But of-course it is wrong to focus too much on the technology that facilitates this. Which reminds me of a Seth Godin quote I like:

"Over and over again, connecting people with one another is what lasts online. Some folks thought it was about technology, but it's not."

In that sense, in a world of momentous change, nothing's changed.

Balance

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Rob@Cynic left an insightful comment on my post below (thanks Rob):

"...the marketing and communication industry is so obsessed with 'future' that they forget the emotional power of the past...given we're in a generation brought up on technological communication, the good ol' "snail mail" might have more impact and engagement with youth than their current mediums because in many cases, they've rarely received a bonafide letter - especially one that is written with warmth, passion and intrigue.

I believe we're in the midst of a transformational change in communications that is both fundamental and permanent. The relationship that people have with brands and media...how we interact, organise, get things done. Its all changing forever. But I also think that this change is about striking a new balance, albeit a fundamentally different one, and in striking that balance the old will find new meaning.

Cassette From My Ex

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Much chatter around muxtape lately. It has a unique appeal to the generation that earnestly made compilations on C90s. I remember giving one to a girlfriend once. I think it was pretty rubbish from memory (I've had some dodgy taste in music in my time) but I'd even gone as far as decorating the cassette sleeve.

So, for the nostalgic, here's a neat idea: Cassette From My Ex. "We share the stories and the soundtrack to your earliest loves". Each post is a personal snapshot in time, the story behind the mixtape, and is  complete with tracklist and the mix embedded to play. And if that's not enough, you can join in the Mixtape stickers project from This Is Process which spreads images of C90s around the world allowing them to be customised.